Bulgarian Folk Songs

Description

Naiden Gerov (1823–1900) was a renowned Bulgarian literary figure, whose accomplishments included composing the first poem in modern Bulgarian. His most important work was his Dictionary of the Bulgarian Language, which he worked on for many decades and which was published in five volumes between 1895 and 1904. Gerov’s lifelong interest in Bulgarian folklore is reflected in his monumental dictionary, in which he included many words from folk materials. Although he gathered much material, most of it was not published during his lifetime. This small anthology, Bulgarian Folk Songs, which appeared in Russia in 1856, was a response to the book of a Russian folklorist, Petr Bezsonov. Bezsonov’s compilation of Bulgarian folk songs came out in 1855, but it had errors about the rhythmic structure of Bulgarian folk songs and prompted Gerov to issue this work, which included just five songs but which had numerous notes and corrections to Bezsonov.